Laments of a philosophical pessimist. Notes on society, politics, and culture.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Vote In This Election, But Look Beyond Elections

At this point in
time, almost every civic institution has failed the American people. Congress has become the laughingstock of the
world’s democracies, so filled with bumpkins and partisan know-nothings that in
a time of serious crises most of the nation’s vital business remains undone or
not even begun. Our Supreme Court, in a
set of perverse legal fictions, has deemed corporations to be people and money to
be political speech, leading to an unprecedented flood of unregulated cash that
has drowned the last vestiges of integrity in our electoral process. Meanwhile, one major political party—the one that
has been taken over by bigots, religious fundamentalists who disdain science, and
Ayn Rand devotees—is in over thirty states attempting to purge the rolls of citizens
likely to vote for the other major party.
The leadership of both parties are the creatures of an unaccountable
financial elite that has overseen the decline of America’s postwar middle class
over the past thirty-five years; as a result, the US has the most unequal
distribution of wealth in the developed world.
This has come about through decades of intensive lobbying and
deregulation that created a global and financialized economy completely detached
from domestic productive activity, and which produced the most serious economic
crisis since the Great Depression. Since
2007, millions of Americans have lost their jobs and homes, and the
unemployment rate of new college graduates hovers at about 50%. The bankers and financiers whose irresponsible
and arguably fraudulent practices precipitated this crisis have not only gone
unprosecuted; they were in fact rewarded for their malfeasance with an enormous
taxpayer bailout, and their profits are as high as ever. In the meantime, roughly 30% of the electorate
suffers from a social pathology that sees incipient tyranny in a modest reform
of our health care system, while ignoring the fact that two successive
presidential administrations—one Republican and one Democratic—have presided
over an unprecedented expansion of executive power, which now explicitly claims
for itself the right to practice warrantless surveillance, to indefinitely
detain (without charges) noncitizens and citizens alike, and to practice
torture and extralegal, unilateral killing.
In sum, we no longer live in a functional democracy, but rather a kleptomaniacal
oligarchy that serves the few, and which has grown adept at distracting the
many. War is peace, freedom is slavery,
ignorance is strength.

Should you vote
in this election, despite this pessimistic situation? Yes. Vote in this election, vote tactically, yes, vote for the perennial
“lesser of two evils,” but look beyond
elections if you’re at all serious about reversing these trends and
reclaiming your future. Consider this: our
nation’s founders changed the world without casting a ballot. Retrieve their daring, imagination, and
courage, and hold fast to their notion that government ought to dedicate itself
to the common welfare of us all. On their account, government is to serve the
people, as is the economy, and the moment the people are subordinated to either
the people have a duty to revolt against both.
Do not fear government, because it rightfully belongs to us.
Rather, keep your eyes fixed firmly on those forces that have usurped
our democracy; the time has come for these forces to fear us. Remember that authentic
dissent is often the highest form of patriotism, and that protest should be
more than mere ritual. Look not only to
the past for inspiration, but also to the present—to the Arab Spring, to
Greece, Spain, Portugal, Québec, and Iceland.
Look at what these peoples have done, and are doing. Learn the
democracy of the streets. Become citizens
in the fullest sense, and demand what is yours.
Reclaim your government and your nation from those who have taken them
from you. Dare to think outside the
ballot box, as others have done before you, and as others are doing now.
Look and see, then imagine what a “more perfect union” would look like,
and then act to make it a
reality. Don’t stop until this future is
realized.

1 comment:

Citizens of the world, unite! We have only our chains to lose! Spain is now rediscovering its popular assemblies and the call is for every neighborhood to come together in electing non-partisan, honest, intelligent, freedom loving spokesmen for biorregionally oriented congresses... Globalization, yes, but from the bottom up. Our families should decide who they can receive under their roofs. National frontiers are on the way out, must be if we are to save the planet, i.e., US. www.institutosimoneweil.net